And Then I Remembered
by Lachriel
Summary: Donna remembers.


Dislcaimer: I do not own Doctor Who or any of the related peoples or places. I make no money from fanfic-authoring or I'd be doing it full time.

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><p>It was like I'd been asleep. And I'd been a long time waking up.<p>

_And then I remembered._

I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk when I started to really remember things. I was talking on my mobile with... Edith, was it? One of the girls from my latest temp job.

_Super temp! That's me!_

"Sorry," I said. "I've got to go."

"Go?"

"Yeah. There's... traffic."

"Yeah, right. Not since that thing with ATMOS." And I knew what she meant. Even a few hours ago I wouldn't have. "Anyway, I _know_ you're walking. You're _always_ on foot. You could outrun any of us at the office." I could. I'd had a lot of practice running. I remembered that too.

"Edith? I can't hear you. I'm going through a tunnel."

"Oh, come off it, Donna. No you're no-" I hung up.

I stood staring. People moved around me. Everything looked different now. And everything made so much more sense.

I knew that I had missed things – fantastic, _unbelievable_ things. I was always in the wrong place, looking in the wrong direction. I _didn't_ believe in them.

_But then I forgot._

There was a big gaping hole in my life. I remembered before, and I remembered after. Mum and Grandad didn't act like anything strange had happened, so I did my best to pretend nothing had. I didn't want them thinking I'd gone loony.

But I was different. I saw more. My mind worked differently. I was smarter, cleverer, made connections that seemed completely obvious – and at first I couldn't see why other people couldn't see them. After all, I was nothing special.

I wasn't always looking the wrong way anymore. Not that it mattered. Whenever anything weird happened, my brain sort of shut down. I could be standing there, staring right at whatever was happening, and wouldn't remember it afterward. More than once I'd been found unconscious on the street afterward. Now I remembered. I remembered everything.

I turned toward home, walking as fast as could. This explained so much! The nightmares, for one.

I'd gotten married. Before the wedding, I'd had terrible nightmares – Santas and spider-things. Mum had explained it away as pre-wedding jitters. "Once burned, twice shy," she'd said. I hadn't known what she meant, but now I remembered my disastrous first attempt at marriage.

Jeff was patient with me, with my strange moods and stranger dreams. More than once I'd turned and been surprised to see him – expecting someone else, though I didn't know who. More than once I'd called him "Lee" or even "Doctor."

And then there was Jenny. It had seemed terribly important to name my daughter Jenny – not Jennifer – Jenny. She was a bubbly little ginger toddler. But sometimes I was afraid when I saw her. I didn't recognize my baby. I panicked, searching around for a little boy and a little girl that didn't exist – Ella and… and Joshua. Then I would remember that Jenny was mine. _She_ was my baby. I'd pick her up and cry without knowing why, grieving for I didn't know what.

Other times I was afraid to let her out of my sight, terrified that she would disappear if I so much as blinked. Jenny slept through the night long before I did. Even last week I'd woken from a nightmare of her and my husband being pulled away into a brilliant white oblivion.

I remembered running. I remembered saving the world. I remembered seeing so many marvelous, wonderful, amazing things. I remembered being brilliant, being _told_ I was brilliant.

I remembered the Doctor.

_And then I forgot. He _**made** _me forget!_

If I ever see that man again, I'm going to punch him in the nose!

Not that I won't forgive him. He saved my life then and loads of times before that. I'll forgive him. I'm just going to punch him in the face _first_.

Everyone else got to go home heroes. I got my memories blocked and dropped back exactly where I'd been before I'd met the Doctor.

I felt the blood rushing out of my face.

I remembered why he'd blocked my memories.

I stood for a moment, taking stock. I felt... fine. Normal. There was no sign that I was burning up or breaking down or any other sort of dying. Had the Doctor been wrong?

Another explanation occurred to me. You see it all the time on the telly, especially in daytime dramas. People get amnesia and then they eventually (usually at the worst possible moment) get better. The brain heals itself.

_My_ brain had healed itself.

Once my mind had flushed out enough of the Time Lord stuff that it could function again, the mental blocks had come down. I thought about the TARDIS's chameleon circuit to test my theory. I'd come up with a way to fix it just before my head had started glitching.

Sure enough, the information was still there... most of it... enough of it. It wasn't as bright and burning as it had been back then, all the new information and thoughts rushing about. My mind was still something slightly more than human, but only just. I could still repair the circuit. I could still navigate the TARDIS.

I continued home, probing my mind while I walked.

"You're home early. Weren't you going out with the girls from the office?" Jeff kissed me on the cheek.

I smiled at him and picked up Jenny. "Changed my mind."


End file.
